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2 children, mother dead in suspected murder-suicide in Ottawa suburb

Ottawa police major crime detectives have been called in to investigate after a mother and her two children, believed to be aged 10 and 6, were found dead in what appears to be a double-murder/suicide Monday evening.

Photograph by: Mike Carroccetto
, Ottawa Citizen

Two young children and their stay-at-home mom — the woman who welcomed new neighbours when they moved onto their quiet Stittsville street — are dead in what police are treating as a double-murder and suicide.

Major-crime detectives were on the scene at 25 Granite Ridge Dr. Monday night after police received an emergency call around 5:30 p.m. from the children’s father, Jon Corchis. It was Corchis who discovered the gruesome crime scene on a lower level of the house.

Alex, 10, and Katie, 6, were pronounced dead at the scene. Sources say the mother, Alison Easton, was still alive when emergency crews arrived but was pronounced dead a short time later.

Jon’s father Robert Corchis of Windsor, Ont., had not heard of the tragedy late Monday night and was too distraught to comment as he heard the news.

“I was hoping it wasn’t true. Alex wasn’t at school today, but with the flu and everything nobody thought twice about it.”

Bureau’s daughter, Emily, 14, who babysat regularly for the two kids, described Katie as a sweet, engaging child.

“She was really happy and bubbly, a lot of energy,” she said, adding that the little girl loved to talk about all that she was learning. “A new word, or anything in school.”

She said Alex was extremely bright.

“He was the smartest little boy I ever met,” said Emily, the makeup on her face smeared with tears.

“He could memorize anything,” she said, from YouTube videos to math equations. “He was older than his age.”

The children had been in Grade 5 and kindergarten at Stittsville Public School, across the street from where they lived.

Tonya Marczak, another neighbour whose daughter was a close friend of Katie’s, said Katie’s birthday party was just this past weekend.

It was a tea party.

“It was bring a doll and we’re having tea and cake and dress up,” she said, adding that it was fitting since dressing up was Katie’s favourite thing.

She said Katie’s mother was harder to get to know than her children.

“She was very quiet. I kinda use the word a little bit awkward, or what’s the word I would use? Strange, I guess. She’s a little bit strange, but I mean, we all are, right?”

She said Alex was polite and outgoing, and she remembers him on a recent day enjoying the snow at the park with a friend.

“They’re climbing the hill and they’re rolling down and they’re throwing snowballs,” she said.

She said she couldn’t begin to explain how a tragedy like this one could happen.

“I have no idea, because they seemed like such nice people,” she said. “To hear that there’s three dead is just — it’s just devastating. I don’t understand how this happens, I don’t. Especially when I’ve got little kids of my own.”

She said she still wasn’t sure how to talk to her own children about what had happened.

“I honestly don’t know what to tell them at this point.”

A friend of the couple said Corchis works as a software consultant. Easton was the street representative for the community association and neighbour Jeff Wilk said she came to welcome his family to the block.

Wilk said he remembers seeing the kids at Halloween, Katie dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and Alex as a ninja.

Ottawa police major crime detectives have been called in to investigate after a mother and her two children, believed to be aged 10 and 6, were found dead in what appears to be a double-murder/suicide Monday evening.

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